Plane and Simple

A few months back a member of my extended family (on my wife's side) decided to sell their house and move south.  In the basement of the house was a collection of old tools from a grandfather who had passed away, and I bought the whole kitten-caboodle for $100.00 (see This Post from January).

Well, hidden in that lot was a little filthy dirty block plane that I didn't really pay much attention to.  However I recently bought a set of dremel cleaning bits and decided to clean up some of this older stuff.

After really looking at this for first time I noted some unusual things about this block plane.  It has a lateral adjuster for the blade, the blade depth wheel is oriented horizontally:

And little tiny knob up front has some kind of adjuster I have never seen on a plane before:

I disassembled the plane, blew the dust out, and took every piece of the plane to my drill press that has a brass wire cleaning wheel installed in it right this second (I got it at the Big Blue store for $0.70).  After about 15 minutes I had everything de-gunked and pretty much rust free.

Imagine my surprise when I got enough gunk off of the cap iron to see the engraving stating this was a vintage Stanley Sweet Heart block plane.  I'm not sure exactly what the model is, I am pretty sure it is not a #102.

I'm also pretty sure it still works.

Going, going, gone....

Sunday I went to my first auction.  My wife spied an article in the local paper about an estate auction being held nearby and part of the estate was a wood working shop!

The auctions started at 10:00, and I didn't get there until nearly 9:45, so I didn't have as much chance to walk around and scope things out as I would have liked.

I got a little electric sharpener (by craftsman) for $10.00.  This will be good enough to hollow grind a set of junkie bench chisels, but I don't want to use it on my good chisels or my plane blades.

I got a set of clamp edge guides for $30.  Two 4', One 3' and Two 2'

I also got a 3/4 HP single stage dust collector (woodtek) for $40, and a 1 HP single stage dust collector (relaint) for $45.00.

I got outbid on a 6"x4" craftsman disk / belt sander, several different types of clamps, and 2 different oscillating spindle sanders.

Now I just need some hose fittings for the Dust collection (I'm going to put the 3/4 HP on my Bandsaw full time and move the 1HP around as I need it) and I'll be in business.

The 2 hour project

After working 1/2 a day on Saturday, I cam home and installing the top the Bedroom Built in.  One more step in finishing this and its a big one.  Now everything looks finished (except for the handles, and the big gouge I took out of the wall installing the top) and adding the two bookcases to each end are just "add ons".


















House chores ate up the morning on Sunday, but I did get out the shop in the afternoon.  Due to a set of missing car keys I was left to work with whatever I had on hand in the shop and I remembered something the LOML had asked me for, and I had a piece of poplar handy that looked like it would fit the bill.  Two hours later the project was completed:

This is a wall mount magazine rack for the bathroom (seems someone is tired of my reading materials congregating on the back of the toilet).

Should be able to get this stained and installed by the weekend (which is good, cause it's time get the Camper ready for our trip to Dover for the NASCAR race).  I even managed to use my new Bandsaw to shape the scooped cut-outs.